GDP

Lew Daly and I have a new piece on The New Republic examining states implementing the Genuine Progress Indicator. Because the piece is meant for a broad audience, some of the finer points had to be brushed over. This piece explains some of the more wonky questions about GPI.
1. Why not GDP?
A lot...

In the New York Times, a former Wall Street banker begins a deep and emotional piece on wealth addiction with the following confession:
In my last year on Wall Street my bonus was $3.6 million — and I was angry because it wasn’t big enough. I was 30 years old, had no children to raise, no debts...

Eugenio Proto and Aldo Rustichini have written a new column for VOX in which they argue that once GDP per capita reaches a certain level, it actually begins to correlate with lower life satisfaction.
Of course, this result shouldn’t be too surprising; GDP is a measure of economic production, and...

Lew Daly and I have a new piece at Salon about the carbon bubble. We argue that current valuations of companies mask an unsustainable future. As The Economist puts it, “either governments are not serious about climate change or fossil fuel firms are overvalued.” Elsewhere I’ve noted that the plight...

The 2007 economic crisis and the lingering stagnation it wrought has led economists, philosophers and policymakers to a profound rethinking of how we measure economic performance and social progress. As Joseph E. Stiglitz, Amartya Sen and Jean-Paul Fitoussi write in the forward to their book,...

Yesterday, Jared Bernstein and Dean Baker wrote about the new changes in how the Bureau of Economic Affairs calculates GDP. In short, as Bernstein and Baker explain:
Now there is a new category in the quarterly G.D.P. reports called “intellectual property products,” including “entertainment...

When you think about the problems with GDP, it’s likely you don’t think about Lady Gaga. But, in fact, how her work is captured and valued by national economic indicators is relevant to the beyond GDP conversation. We’ve written continuously about how GDP is not a complete measure of our economic...

Contrary to most analysts’ predictions GDP actually declined last quarter by 0.1 percent, according to the BLS estimates. A decline in GDP generally indicates a contraction in the economy, but is that what’s really going on?
One of the main reasons GDP declined was a 22 percent decrease...

Tomorrow’s fourth quarter GDP release will likely show a growth rate of around 1.1. percent, a substantial slowdown from the third quarter rate of 3.1 percent. Economists will report that this means the economic growth is slowing. Yet, as we ask continually, what is actually being measured by GDP?...

This Explainer explores how the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is used in measuring our economic growth and whether alternative measures are also needed to provide a more comprehensive outlook of economic progress.
What is GDP and How Is It Used?
GDP measures the output of goods and services...